know it merely. And something has fallen away, that
used to cover me up in the past.... Yes, that's it: for now I can feel
all those desires that used to pass me by as if deflected by a cuirass
of insensibility.... Now I can feel how they touch my body and my soul,
filling me with qualms and passions. The earth seems full of adventure.
The sky seems radiant with flames. And it is as if I could see myself
stand waiting with wide-open arms.

AMADEUS (_as if calling to somebody in flight_)

Cecilia!

CECILIA

What is the matter?

AMADEUS

Nothing.... The words you speak cannot estrange me after all that I
have learned already. But there is a new ring in your voice that I have
never heard until to-day. Nor have I ever seen that light in your eyes
until to-day.

CECILIA

That's what you imagine, Amadeus. If that were really the case, then I
should feel the same in regard to you. But I can see no difference in
you at all. And I can't imagine how you possibly could come to seem
different. To other women you may appear a mischiefmaker--or a silly
youth--which has probably happened many times: but to me you will
always remain the same as ever. And I have a feeling that, in the last
instance, nothing can ever happen to the Amadeus I am thinking of.

AMADEUS

If I could only feel the same--in regard to you! But such assurance is
not mine. The recklessness and greed with which you make your way into
an unknown world are filling me with outright fear on your behalf. The
idea that there are people who know as little of you as you of them at
this moment, and to whom you are going to belong...

CECILIA

I shall belong to nobody ... now, that I am free ...

AMADEUS

... who are part of your destiny already, as you of theirs ... it seems
to me uncanny. And you are no more the Cecilia I used to love--no! You
resemble closely one who was very dear to me, and yet you are not at
all the same as she. No, you are not the woman that was my wife for
years. I could feel it the moment you entered the place.... The
connection between the young girl who sank into my arms one evening
seven years ago and the woman who has just returned from abroad to
dwell for a brief while in this house seems quite mysterious. For seven
years I have been living with another woman--with a quiet, kindly
woman--with a sort of angel perhaps, who has now disappeared. She who
came to-day has a voice that I have never heard, a look that I am
foreign to,